William Barksdale

William Barksdale (21 August 1821-3 July 1863) was a Brigadier General in the Confederate States Army and a Representative from Mississippi from 1853 to 1861.

Biography
Barksdale was born in Smyrna, Tennessee, and graduated the University of Nashville, practicing law in Mississippi. However, he later edited a pro-slavery newspaper and served as a Captain during the Mexican-American War, later acting as a Quartermaster. After the war he served in the House of Representatives for the state of Mississippi and was a believer in states rights, a pro-slavery platform.

After Mississippi seceded before the American Civil War in 1861, Barksdale was made Quartermaster General of the Mississippi militia and a Brigadier General. Commanding the 13th Mississippi Infantry Regiment in the First Battle of Bull Run and the campaign in Virginia, he proceeded to fight in the major battles of the Army of Virginia, and in the Battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863 he led a successful counterattack that recaptured lost land from John Sedgwick's Union force.

Barksdale would distinguish himself in the Battle of Gettysburg in early July 1863, serving under Lafayette McLaws. In a breathtaking spectacle, his men burst out of a wooded area and ambushed the Union army in the Peach Orchard, and he smashed the brigade manning the Peach Orchard line. According to a Confederate staff officer, "he rode on horseback, leading the way, hat off, his whispy hair shining so that it reminded me of the white plume of Navarre".

But leading his soldiers in Plum Run not far from Cemetery Ridge, Barksdale was shot in the leg and injured. A cannonball then hit his foot, and a shot to the chest knocked him off his horse. Barksdale told his officer to inform his wife and children that he died at his post, and his men were forced to leave him for dead. Sure enough, he died, and was buried in Jackson, Mississippi.